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Environment

Hundreds facing arrest at pipeline protest

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoSusan Walsh | ASSOCIATED PRESSSeveral hundred students and youths wait to be arrested after marching in Washington from Georgetown University to the White House to protest construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Park police yesterday afternoon began the slow process of arresting hundreds
of demonstrators participating in an act of civil disobedience in front of the White House to
protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Organizers estimated that 450 people — mostly college students — would ultimately be arrested as
they tried to dissuade the Obama administration from approving the 1,700-mile crude oil pipeline
from Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast.

“Hey, Obama, we don’t want no climate drama,” the protesters chanted, as they attached their
hands to the fence in front of the White House with plastic zip ties. Others lay down on a plastic
tarp representing a “human oil spill,” some wearing plastic suits with a skeleton and one woman in
a Captain Planet costume.

With midterm elections coming up this year, protest organizers noted that young voters have been
a key part of the coalition that elected President Barack Obama.

The proposed pipeline “signifies a long-term commitment to using fossil fuels,” said Taylor
Woodard, 22, who was wearing a garland of fir branches on her head. Woodard traveled to Washington
from Clemson University in South Carolina, where she is a junior majoring in philosophy, and
expected to be arrested by the end of the afternoon.

The Keystone XL pipeline has become a touchstone for the environmental movement, and civil
disobedience has been a key tactic: 1,200 were arrested at the White House over two weeks in fall
2011, and smaller-scale actions have taken place around the country. More than 86,000 people signed
a “Pledge of Resistance” promising to engage in civil disobedience if a State Department report,
called the “National Interest Determination” and expected in the coming months, points toward
approval.

Yesterday, before marching to the White House, the protesters unfurled a banner in the street in
front of Secretary of State John Kerry’s house in Washington. But Kerry, who appeared on three
morning news shows to discuss the situation in Ukraine, was probably not home.

A State Department contractor studying the pipeline’s potential environmental impact was cleared
of charges of conflict of interest by an inspector general last week.